Ground control

YOU may imagine the gardens surrounding stately homes remain unchanged for decades, with the same stiff topiary and clumps of rhododendrons in suspended animation. Not so, according to Myles Baldwin and his lavishly illustrated first book, Period Gardens: Landscapes for Houses with History.

In it, he sets out to demonstrate how landscape designers try to recreate the original style of gardens that surround such historic buildings, while also making them relevant in the present day. Those who favour a time capsule-style approach to such spaces don't always have practicality in mind.

"What the historians and purists need to understand is that a good horticulturist would know that a garden is dynamic," says Baldwin, a landscape gardener. "Plants grow, die and evolve. That is a fact of life: a garden is not a static element like a museum, but a living thing, which cannot be kept in a glass jar."

Throughout his book, Balwin points out that buildings change over time too, and their surrounding gardens should reflect that. "When designing a period-style garden, architecture is the most significant element and the basis from which to theme it," he says.

One of the properties featured, Cruden Farm in Victoria, Australia, is a perfect example of this theory. Its gardens were developed almost 80 years ago, when the house was still part of a rural setting. Nowadays, urban life has crept closer and there are new-build homes within view, as well as a four-lane motorway in front of the house. The gardeners and owners have had to make sure that the garden evolves to reflect these changes. So, fresh plantings, including native Cupressocyparis leylandii and eucalyptus, have become a visual screen from the new neighbours. Thanks to this clever planting, the farmhouse-style building still feels aptly secluded and hasn't become incongruous in a changing setting.

The book explains that, since the Italian Renaissance, garden designers have always considered the role of buildings in their work. This was so that the indoor and outdoor living spaces could be made to work together as an integrated whole.

One garden that works perfectly in this context is the former home of Louis XIV, where the intricate, symmetrical grounds echo the elaborate building style.

"The garden at the Palace of Versailles is a perfect example of architecture matched by a garden design displaying all the traits of the then popular Renaissance landscape movement," says Baldwin.

"A period garden, however, need not be as important, as old or anywhere near as grand as this."

An example of a more modern and less imposing green space is Wyldefel Gardens in Sydney. This central court has been designed around a couple of Art Deco-style blocks of flats, with only a small amount of land sandwiched between them. Worked on by Baldwin himself, who started his career as an apprentice at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney, it features a number of tropical plants for which the Art Deco era was famous. The stark white shade of the flats is the ideal canvas for these jaggedly silhouetted shrubs, ferns and flowers; their shadows thrown against the sides of the buildings by the bright afternoon sun.

"Trees such as a black bean, Camellia japonica and fruiting avocado have reached their full potential, providing shade and an ambient cooling environment," Baldwin explains.

"Understorey plantings are typical of the exotic trend of the period and comprise philodendron, aspidistra, justicia and clivia. Palms such as kentias also feature, as does the palm-like giant strelitzia, Strelitzia nicolai."

Compared to this sensual and relaxed melange of jungle plants, the old country manors in the English countryside seem positively intimidating. See the section on Jacobean gardens, featuring Stourhead in Wiltshire and its acres of sweeping, bucolic grounds, or the Georgian gardens including Haseley Court in Oxfordshire, with its clipped topiary and rectangular lawns which command a flat, unobstructed view of the house. Such an approach may not be your cup of tea, but only this style of grand garden could work with these imposing residences. Hence, the grounds have remained relatively unchanged over the years.

Completely contrasting with these spaces, the Edwardian Arts and Crafts gardens seem far more light-hearted and feminine. And, although Baldwin says he adores the examples featured in the book, as a whole he's not a fan of the styles of this period.

"One reason I don't like genuine Edwardian gardens is that they were overdone," he says. "If there was any way to make an area more complex, they would find it. That could mean adding a birdbath, fountain, sundial, some garden gnomes, or even a couple of stone figurines of Ratty and Mole from The Wind in the Willows."

Gardening as a leisure activity really blossomed in Edwardian times. As Baldwin points out, there was "increased leisure time, and even the working class had time for their plots". With such a taste for ornamentation, symmetry was less important and colourful plants such as pastel-coloured rhododendrons, gardenias, hydrangeas and camellias came into vogue.

The book even shows us a Beatrix Potter-esque vegetable patch at Rofford Manor in Oxfordshire, which is a dead ringer for Mr McGregor's plot. No doubt there are a few rocket leaves planted amid the lettuces in those beds. After all, a green space musn't remain suspended in time. As Baldwin says: "A gardener should always look to tomorrow, as a static garden is a dead garden, and understanding the past does not mean we should live in it."

Period Gardens by Myles Baldwin is published by Murdoch Books, priced £25.